Why I switched to Blender.

With the cost of modern-day applications such as Autodesk Maya, Side FX Houdini, Foundry Modo and many more, there has been a bit of a shift in this space. With artists becoming more and more dependent on affordable software, it made sense to give this ago. During my years studying animation I was taught Maya. I was good with it, I could write my own plugins, support plugin dev's with good feedback and I was often the "Go too" guy amongst my fellow artists. But that ended this year with the 4.1 release of Blender.

Once I downloaded Blender, I got to work right away. I came from 3D so the interface I did not find difficult at all, though there were definitely "a ha" moments to say the least. There were a few things I found very strange, such as not having a shelf. This was particularly useful in other 3d programs I had used. In blender you don't need shelves. After using it for nearly 12 months, I have actually considered it a blessing.

I went back to maya for a brief moment during my learning time, and right away felt the dated interface was actually a hinderance compared to Blenders interface. This at first was like culture shock, only with software.

The tools were just as easily accessible as they are in Maya or other 3D application. They are simply in a different spot, either the "N-Panel", the "Properties" panel or you can search for the tool, node or plugin you need from the "F3" search, or in my case "Spacebar"

So how does it compare to Maya?

It's very different. In a way its better, in a way it is worse.

Let me dot point some of my experience:

• Hard Surface Modeling is where Blender has always shined. The hotkeys are unmatched along with the tools ability to change based on the combination of keys you use.
• Sculpting is great in Blender and much more worthwhile than in Maya. For any advanced use cases, ZBrush is still the best tool for that job. With the addition to adding vector displacement maps (VDM's for short), this allows a much similar experience to ZBrush's IMM's / VDM brush kits. Hands down if you need a free sculpting tool, Blender is the go too tool that can be learned very fast in this area.
• Rigging in my opinion is much better in Blender, the way armatures are made, the ability to go back and change rigs at any time with minimal knowledge and reasonable auto weights is pretty impressive. While you still will need the basics of rigging theory to rig well, you can get very far with blenders rigging toolset with minimal experience.
• Simulation is easier in Blender as I found it more difficult to get a good result in Maya. However Houdini is king in this area by far. Nothing comes close. Not, Bifrost, not even Blenders Geo Nodes.
• Blenders Geometry Nodes are far better at proceduralism than the current system in Maya. You almost need a separate degree to understand Bifrost at a high level. There is pretty much nothing these nodes can't build, they can't do the key features of software like Houdini, where you can have a huge amount of geometry in the scene and have it performant. Blender can make good tools procedurally, but adding lots of geometry will bring it to its knees pretty fast. (There are optimisation techniques to help this but as a rule I found it was hard to make larger scenes.)
• Materials I find are much nicer to work with in Maya, especially with the number of ways you can build them. They produce a better result faster, simply because the nodes have better scope, more clarity in the documentation and I can find a lot of information fast about building complex materials for Maya across the internet that are from more seasoned industry artists.
• Rendering is an important thing to note here. The Cycles renderer along with Eevee is astonishingly good for a free render engine. Sure, you can add Pixar's Renderman or AMD Pro Render (not a particularly great renderer but it is acceptable for a free alternative). The results speak for themselves, you can test this in various ways (out of scope for this article). Cycles is even used in benchmarking system hardware because it is not only consistent but its stable. Cycles and Eevee are a formidable render engine that can produce exceptional renders.
• UV Editing is a nightmare in blender. Sure, it's simple enough to use, but is it good? - A hard NO..... This is one of those places in Blender that really needs work. Straighten doesn't work well and often collapses to a strange line. The hotkeys are not well documented, as it was only by chance that I found out how to skew a UV shell, but it's not obvious. UDIM workflow is limited but functional. and the standard checker map that comes with Blender is a joke. Seriously that needs to be replaced. Orientation is a thing, and that map makes figuring that out, so much harder than it needs to be. RizomUV is an absolute steal when you consider how much easier it is to get a fantastic result "Fast", that's one software worth buying.
• Animation is a lot better in maya as the hotkeys are easier to use and you don't need to spend an hour trying to learn about actions and how to set keys in various different ways with a hotkey that's miles from a natural hand position. While the animation could be fantastic, I just feel its simpler to work with and faster to get a result in Maya. I can see what Blender is trying to do, and it's a great way to do it. In this case it seems that it is difficult to get it right.

Ok so, knowing some of its good and bad scenarios, what actually made me switch?

Well, it was NOT the price. That was just a bonus.

• Its open source and I can use it how I please in any environment I see fit.
• No license server taking up resources and checking every time I log in if I have permission and or reporting the usage statistics or worse than that leaving ports open for constant online communication between servers.
• Plugins and addons are plenty with blender and a lot of them are very high quality. If I don't have the time to make something work, there's likely a plug in or a node setup already made ready to import. These also tend to come with a lower cost and more open to allow modification / improvements that you need. Most developers even have communities around them so its very easy to find specific tool help.
• Its ability to be implemented in a team environment is surprisingly good. Those that claim it isn't, have not tried it for long enough to know exactly how flexible, friendly and open it is and provides out of the box settings to get it setup in a studio environment or using version control / deployment strategies.
• Game engine integration is great and its simple. In some engines like unity, Godot you can even use the actual .blend file (blender project format DIRECTLY in the engine. That is insane!)
• Support is a good subject, While Autodesk and SideFX have support for their clients it comes at a cost... a large cost... I've never run into a situation I could not fix either with a simple search engine or asking the community. This won't suit everyone or business, but it's worth noting it's got a very solid userbase that does have a solid understanding of the software.

... and finally, I switched because it works on any operating system. This one was important, because I could set up my team, and have them all on the same setup as the server and deploy any changes remotely and they would get the changes and not even have to reboot the software, all that while running on 3 different operating systems (Windows, Mac and Linux).

So how can you integrate this software into your pipeline?

Well start with installing the software and actually giving it a good go. Things will be new, they will be different, and they will be challenging at first. but that doesn't mean it's bad.

A common misconception is that is "not industry standard". Let's quickly take a look at that. Industry standard is a myth. That concept shifts often and shifts without warning. The words "Industry Standard" doesn't automatically deem a product better than another. In fact, that perception can affect YOU. The fact is many artists stick to a certain program they "believe" is the best because of its status as industry standard that it cannot be beaten in a subject by something else. However, its simply much better practice to use whatever tool is BEST for that task. If that so happens to be blender, don't be afraid to learn something new. You may find you really loved what you learned, and it was a fantastic experience.

Do I regret switching?

• No, I do not. I do however wish I had learned earlier.

Will I go back?

• Sure, when I find a need that cannot be satisfied with blender, I will still use all the greats, such as when I need to animate Ill go to maya, when I need high end VFX, I'll go back to Houdini. simply pay as I go. that makes it more affordable and sustainable.

I hope this helps you decide to try something new and expand your horizons as an artist.